THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Outline Map No. VI.-Number Colored Population for Each Colored Insane,
Census 1880
Ratio for United States ..................
...
Ratio for Southern States...................
Ratio for United States miuus Southern States.
1,069
1,277
542
negroes, not to mention idiots and im
beciles, is already fully up to that of the
Caucasian races, with whom they are
associated, and bids fair to surpass it."
* " The negro has been thrown upon
his own physical and mental resources
and has entered the strife for existence
as an inferior; he is syphilized, alco
holized, his food is ofttimes unsuitable,
* * * his surroundings are usually
unhygienic, and tuberculosis finds in
him an easy prey. No wonder it is that
under these circumstances we have in
our asylums an ever-increasing number
of idiots, of imbeciles, and of all types of
the dementias from the colored race."
There are, however, some extremely
interesting facts relative to this in
crease. The percentage of colored in
sane increases rapidly as we leave the
* A Treatise on Mental Diseases.
natural home of the negro and go in any
direction. In other words, as soon as
the negro goes North and enters into
active competition with the white, who
is mentally his superior, he succumbs to
the unequal struggle. So in Georgia,
where we find the greatest number of
negroes, there was i insane negro to
1,764 of the colored population in 1880,
while in New York the ratio was i to
333, or almost exactly the same ratio
as for the white population.
(See out
line maps Nos. V, VI.)
Then, again, if we take the Southern
States alone, viz., Alabama, Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisi
ana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vir
ginia, we find the ratio of colored insane
i to 1,277, while for the whites in the
same territory it is I to 456. For the
376